


Maybe the Bold

by flashindie



Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-05
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-01-05 09:43:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 17,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18363488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flashindie/pseuds/flashindie
Summary: So it happens like this: she kisses him, and it’s so, so tentative, so soft – as soft as his fingers, tilting up her chin, as soft as the way he looks at her, often, ever more often, and it’s not deep, not much more than a graze of her lips over his as she stands on her tiptoes to reach him, and she’s nervous when she pulls away, almost overwhelmed and she looks at him, looking at her, and almost wants to disappear, because he hadn’t kissed her back, and “Right, okay, sorry,” she starts to say, feeling herself blush to the roots of her hair, and then her back is against the wall, and he’s on her, licking past her teeth, and all she can see is Rio’s miles of tanned skin, and all she smell is Rio’s cologne, and all she can taste is Rio.-A collection of replies to tumblr prompts.





	1. Beth x Rio - First Kiss

Prompt: first kiss

1\. I mean, it has to be Beth right? It has to be her, and they both know it. Rio will always meet her halfway on this stuff, but he’ll never encroach on the half she has to walk towards him. It’s not how he does it. He wants her there. He wants her to want it.

2\. And it’s so hard for Beth to do it. She’s been with Dean since highschool, lost her virginity to him, hasn’t kissed another man in twenty years, and, hell, even before that, there was only the one – some freckly kid in her sophomore English class who’d clasped sweaty hands around her pale shoulders and stuck his tongue so forcibly in her mouth it was like he was trying to lick the last drop of soda from the bottom of a coke can. Basically it’s not a great track record.

3\. And she is so, so sure Rio’s probably kissed a hundred women! A thousand! Probably one, beautiful woman for a whole lot of time if the golden skinned boy who’d called him Daddy in the park is anything to go by. Women who are prettier and skinnier and sexier than Beth, who kiss like movie stars or porn stars or some combination of both.

4\. But she also can feel it, and she knows he can too. Knows from the way he seems to fixate on her, the way he orbits her, the way it doesn’t matter if they’re in a big box cafeteria or alone, in her bedroom – that it always feels the same. That heat, that charge, that magnetic, chemical, natural pull that seems to ebb them closer and closer until a voice or a choice or a set of keys to the face sends them spinning out from each other again.

5\. So it happens like this: she kisses him, and it’s so, so tentative, so soft – as soft as his fingers, tilting up her chin, as soft as the way he looks at her, often, ever more often, and it’s not deep, not much more than a graze of her lips over his as she stands on her tiptoes to reach him, and she’s nervous when she pulls away, almost overwhelmed and she looks at him, looking at her, and almost wants to disappear, because he hadn’t kissed her back, and “Right, okay, sorry,” she starts to say, feeling herself blush to the roots of her hair, and then her back is against the wall, and he’s on her, licking past her teeth, and all she can see is Rio’s miles of tanned skin, and all she smell is Rio’s cologne, and all she can taste is Rio.

-

[Original post is here.](https://pynkhues.tumblr.com/post/183257132894/beth-and-rio-who-initiates-first-kiss-big)


	2. Beth x Rio - Big Spoon/Little Spoon

Prompt: Big Spoon/Little Spoon

I know the prompt was big spoon/little spoon, but I did five head canons about Beth and Rio sleeping together instead, haha 

1\. You cannot tell me that Rio sleeps with clothes on.

2\. The realisation of this comes kind of late, because the first few times they sleep together, it’s after passionate, wild, new sex, so they’re both naked and asleep before they have a chance to shower or change. It means Beth only discovers this when she’s slipping into her button-down, satin pyjamas to find Rio, also showered, but still stark naked. It’s kind of mortifying for Beth. She’s not a prude exactly, but, y’know, she comes from a certain background which didn’t exactly encourage nudity outside of bathtime. Rio is endlessly amused by how mortified she is, and also by her grandma pyjamas. “Ain’t hidin’ nothin’ I wasn’t hittin’ twenty minutes ago,” he gestures vaguely to her body. “But by all means, keep your virtue intact.”

3\. Now Beth stays dressed purely out of spite and may or may not wear her ugliest, most grandma-like pyjamas the rest of the week. 

4\. She kind of gets it though. Rio runs hot. Really hot. Like, to the point Beth is starting to think she needs to find a way to check him and treat him like she does when the kids have a fever. Still, when it’s cold, she doesn’t mind it. Not the way he presses against her back, his leg pushed between hers, his hands below her shirt, soft and warm on her belly. He doesn’t cling like Dean had, and when he’s too hot, she can push him off her gently, and he’ll roll over easily, kicking off the sheets and giving her enough of an eyeful to make her blush, even in the middle of the night.

5\. Mostly though she’s getting used to it, even if she does now live in constant fear of the kids barrelling through the door. 

-

[Original post is here. ](https://pynkhues.tumblr.com/post/183257692869/prompt-big-spoonlittle-spoon)


	3. Beth x Rio - Jealousy / Possessiveness

Prompt: Jealousy/possessiveness

1\. I mean, if there are two things that S1 really established about Rio, it’s that he likes to be in control, and he’s possessive of the things that he views as his. 

2\. And it doesn’t flick like a switch for him – I mean, at least not with Beth. So what if the thought of hittin’ it crosses his mind while he watches her call her lady friends over the first time they meet, sitting bolt upright on that little bench in her kitchen, poised and nervous, but trying not to show it. Rio’s never really had any concerns over what path his libido tries to draw him down – hell, he generally likes the variety – and she’s stacked, with full lips and visibly soft skin, and is blatantly so vanilla and so wound up that the thought of unravelling her a little, well, it has appeal, y’know? Only that’s not the business they’re here for, so he puts it aside and figures this wealthy, suburban bitch in her big house on her nice street will sell a few of the rocks in her jewellery box and give him back what’s his, and that’ll be the end of that.

3\. Only, of course, it’s not. Because something in this woman’s life has obviously gone wrong and she can’t scrape together the funds, and he’s fully prepared for it to be the end of it in a whole other way, when she reads him the riot act, a gun at her temple, back straight and hands shaking, and well, if that doesn’t change everything. And so, sure, it starts as a few odd jobs, and then a proposition, and then they’re in bed together professionally, and the thought of getting in bed together unprofessionally takes up a little more space in his head than he expected, because she’s not what he expected. But whatever. She’s married, and Rio’s never really lacking for company when he wants it, and so what, if he finds himself wanting it a little more, and so what, if they’re a little paler, a little blonder, a little older than his usual type?

4\. And he’s not jealous of her husband. He’s not, but there’s something about all that history, about those four kids she never stops yappin’ about, about the lived-in-ness of Car Man that sets his teeth on edge. The way the guy says her name, hands on his hips, in the doorway of her bedroom. The way he says it, after Rio’s kicked the shit out of him and Beth’s standing up, pointing his gun at them. And so what, if he finally lets himself touch her when he pulls the gun from her hands, her skin exactly as soft as he’d thought it’d be, and so what, if it felt better than it should’ve to do it in front of her husband, right before he shot him?

5\. But things are different now. The air feels different between them. Tastes different. She betrayed him, and he didn’t see it coming, and that? That’s dangerous. Too dangerous to let her go. He has to pull this cord between them tighter, has to keep that grip firm at the back of her neck, because that little voice in the back of his head which should be saying end it is instead saying mine. 

-

[Original post is here.](https://pynkhues.tumblr.com/post/183273332204/prompt-jealousypossessiveness)


	4. Beth x Rio - Rio discovering Beth's lying superpower

Prompt: Rio discovers Beth's lying superpower (this was written before 2.02 sorry!)

So, they’re meeting for a drop. It’s one of the few times they’ve done this during the day, one of the only times in the park, and Beth’s not really sure if the reason for that is that the daytime drops are usually just her (Annie and Ruby both have work, after all), if he knows she’s not quite as comfortable crime’ing in the bright, exposing light of day, or simply if it suits him better right now. She’s standing up, shielding him from view as he crouches over the bag, making a production for her out of counting the money, and she has to resist the urge to roll her eyes. The message is clear. He doesn’t trust her.

Well, the feeling’s mutual.

“Kids at school?” she asks only a little dryly, and he doesn’t so much as glance up at her. They have barely spoken about his son since they met him a few weeks ago at this very park, and even when she’d asked him, Rio had pointedly ignored the question. Just like he does now. She folds her arms across her chest, shifting her weight. She almost calls him on it, but decides against it.

“It’s all there, and you know it,” she hisses instead, and Rio does look up at that, arching an eyebrow and opening his mouth to speak when a voice sounds loud behind her.

“Beth! Bethy Boland! Goodness, I feel like I haven’t seen you in months.”

Beth spins on the spot, heart in her throat, can feel more than see Rio rising to stand behind her, and god, she can’t even remember this woman’s name – Gail, or Gert, or Gemma – something with a G she’s sure – but the face, she knows the face. It’s one of the women who used to be on the fundraising committee with her at the kids’ school, and Beth can already feel her mind going a mile a minute.

Maybe-Gail (she’s pretty sure it’s Gail) is only a few years older than Beth, dressed in running shoes and Lulu Lemon, and she leans in to peck Beth on the cheek, her skin cool enough that Beth knows the run is all for show – she feels like she just got out of an air conditioned car.

“I couldn’t believe it when Charlotte told me you’d left the committee,” Gail says, clutching a hand to her chest like this is a certain type of devastation. “You were like a piece of the furniture at those meetings.”

“Oh, I know,” Beth says with a shrug, positioning herself more securely between Rio and Gail, for who’s protection, she’s not sure. “It just got to be a bit too much. I don’t know if you heard, but Dean and I have had a rough couple of months. He was mugged in town, and his mother had a little fall.”

The latter Beth mostly just wishes.

“And the cancer,” Gail says, reaching out to touch Beth’s arm. “You know I meant to send you a card.”

And of course she did. Beth resists the urge to roll her eyes.

“Thank you,” Beth replies instead, touching Gail’s hand on her arm in put-on gratitude, and she clocks it, the exact moment Gail looks over Beth’s shoulder to see Rio, still standing there, and Beth can feel the judgement as much as Rio must be able to – the way the woman focuses on his age, his race, the tattoo, spreading its wings at his throat, but when Beth looks over, Rio isn’t looking at the woman, he’s looking at her.

“Oh, and uh,” Gail says, forehead furrowing. “Who’s your, uh, friend?”

Beth makes a point out of look at Rio with faux surprise, as if she’d forgotten he was there (like she could), and waves a hand out at him as she turns to face Gail.

“Oh, Dean and I are looking at getting some landscaping done for the backyard. You know, liven up the place a little, fresh starts, that whole thing. Give Dean something to play with, get his mind off his troubles.”

She racks her head for a name.

“Tyler here is a landscape architect. He was suggesting some plants this morning at the house, and, you know me, not exactly a green thumb. He suggested we come out here and have a look.”

Gail smiles wide at that, her face instantly brightening.

“Oh, incredible. I’m trying to talk Adam at the moment into letting me redecorate our bedroom. Same thing, you know, freshen it up.”

“You’re telling me,” Beth says with a nod, and then glances back at Rio, where he’s watching her with an expression on his face that Beth doesn’t quite recognise. “Speaking of, we have to dash.”

She leans in close, stage whispers, “Paying the guy by the minute, you know,” and Gail winks back at her.

“Got to keep those purse strings tight.”

And Beth laughs, waving Gail off. The woman’s only a few feet away when she turns back to them.

“You know we miss you at craft circle too!” Gail calls. “And it’s a lot less pressure than the fundraising committee. You should come along again.”

“I’ll think about it, Gail,” she could leave it at that, but Beth thinks doubling down might help. “I’ve missed you girls.”

Gail laughs, drops a hand to her chest, like she’s touched, before turning around and heading on her way. Beth rolls her eyes, looking back at Rio. She gestures down to the bag at his feet.

“Well? It’s all there, right?”

He nods, but doesn’t move away. He looks vaguely amused by her in a way that he hasn’t since she turned him in. The moment sits with them, briefly heavy, and Beth is trying to stop herself from fidgeting under the weight of his gaze when he opens his mouth to speak. 

“That how you get yourself into so much trouble?”

He tilts his chin at Gail’s departing figure, and Beth just scowls at him.

“It’s how I get myself out of so much trouble, thank you.”

And he laughs, that soft, kind one she hasn’t heard in too long.

“Right, Right,” he says instead, picking up the bag, then, “Tyler?”

Beth gestures vaguely around, hands briefly flailing.

“It’s a guy who works with Annie. It was the first name I could think of.”

Rio just breathes out another little laugh, tossing the bag of cash over his shoulder.

“I’ll see you soon, yeah?”

And just like that, he’s gone.

-

[Original post is here.](https://pynkhues.tumblr.com/post/183280671739/headcanon-of-how-rio-would-react-to-beths-lying)


	5. Beth x Rio - Food

Prompt: Food

1\. Mostly because I think Beth’s a really good cook! And she genuinely used to love it, was adventurous with it, really believed all the stuff her grandmother used to tell her about cooking being an act of love, and so falling out of love with Dean had this weird side-effect of making her fall out of love with cooking. She still did it, obviously, but she got a little more reliant on _Minions_ mac and cheese (the kids are too young to appreciate good food anyway), and tuna sandwiches and sure, she still makes cakes from scratch, but she used to make sinful chili chocolate cakes or honey-rich beestings or bold, bright funfetti cakes, and now she drags herself out of bed to serve up a vanilla sponge or a heavy chocolate one with a leaky, mousse centre. An sure, they’re still delicious, but Beth is dialing it in.

2\. And the thing is, Beth doesn’t know much about Rio, but she knows he likes to eat. They haven’t eaten together all that much, or, well, Beth’s never eaten with him, but she’s watched him pour over menus in diners and cafes at drops, ask waitresses about how things are cooked, the cut of meat, vegetables that are in and out of season, in between lecturing her about rotten eggs and kicking bags of fake cash at her beneath the table. 

3\. Still, it’s a surprise when she’s been nervously cooking all of Dean’s favourite things for the third week in a row and walks, exhausted, into the kitchen to find Rio there looking through the glass of the oven door, lips pursed and forehead creased. 

“What are you doing here?” she hisses, and he blinks lazily at her, like she should’ve expected him (which, look, at this point maybe she should have), and he talks like she’d never spoken.

“What’s this?” he asks, pulling the oven door open, and Beth grimaces. 

“It’s a Persian baked chicken and rice, with broccoli and almonds,” she says, and then, repeating herself. “What are you doing here?” 

“Smells good,” he tells her. “Is it ready?” 

She fumbles, flusters. 

“Yes, I mean - - it should be.” 

And that’s all it takes for Rio to don her oven mitts (and isn’t that a sight?), pull the thing out and serve himself a plate. Beth just stares at him, watching him start to stir the vegetables through, and then she blinks, rolls her eyes, breathes out an annoyingly anxious breath, “Wait,” she says, and he looks up at her, eyebrows raised. She sighs. “You serve it with a sauce.” 

She makes it quickly - plain yogurt, mint, garlic, lemon, and Rio watches her from his position leaning back against her kitchen counter. Somewhere in the background, she can hear Dean calling for her, and she’ll get there, she will, she thinks, drizzling the sauce over Rio’s plate. He watches her do it carefully, those dark eyes of his so focused, without saying a word, and then watches her make a plate for Dean. 

“I’ll be back in a sec,” she says, watching Rio take a mouthful. He pauses, looks down at it, and she ducks out of the room. When she gets back to the kitchen, Rio’s gone, his plate and fork washed and stacked on the dishrack, and half the bake and sauce and some of her Tupperware gone. She doesn’t think a lot of it until she gets a text later from an unknown number - a picture of two polished plates (One big, grey, the other smaller, plastic, with trucks decorating the edges) and a message: _Good shit, Elizabeth._

4\. And it happens again a few weeks later, at Emma’s birthday party in the park. She’d insisted on a fancy tea party and so Beth had donned a blush-coloured dress with little red flowers, dressing up all four of the kids in their Sunday Bests and made enough cupcakes to feed a small army. Ruby and Annie and the kids had joined them there, sprawling out on picnic blankets and pushing out their pinky fingers as they’d sipped make believe tea and eaten real cupcakes to Emma’s absolute giddiness. 

She sees it in Annie’s face before she sees Rio, and she’s tense by the time she turns around, clocking him maybe ten feet away, a coy grin on his face as he tilts his head back, away from them. Beth scrambles to her feet, trying to smooth out the lines of her sundress as she follows him.

He ends up taking her to a small alcove between the playground and the baseball field, and they talk, only briefly, about a way to get through the counterfeit cash still stacked up in the storage unit a half hour out of town. Then, promptly:

“What’s the occasion?” 

And Beth blinks, surprised. “What?” 

He makes a point of looking her up and down, clocking her dress, her wedged sandals, her bright, gleaming jewellery. 

“Oh,” she gestures back to the group, where she can feel Annie and Ruby’s gazes, fixed at her back. “It’s my daughter’s birthday.” 

“How old?” 

Beth’s forehead furrows. 

“Six,” she says, and Rio nods along, like he knows, which, she reminds herself, he does. 

“Any leftover cake?” 

Beth laughs. 

“Really?” 

Rio just shrugs, a grin tugging at the corner of his lips, and he’s _shameless_ , Beth thinks. But still, she spins on her heel, walks back and grabs him a range of them - the strawberry shortcake ones, the chocolate ones, the elderflower and lemon ones (so what, if that one was a little fancy? She’d felt inspired) and wraps them in a few napkins, ignoring Annie and Ruby’s questioning looks. She walks them back to him, and tries to ignore the fluttering in her chest at the way his face breaks into an easy, genuine grin. 

“I’ll see you,” he says, taking the cakes, “Happy birthday to your little miss,” and disappearing back through the park. 

5\. “Is there a reason?” she asks him one day, sitting in the bar. He’s just interrogated the poor barman about the specials, and scoffed when the guy had said he wasn’t sure if the shrimp was caught wild or farmed. 

“A reason for what?” Rio says, taking a drink. 

“You and food? Is it a thing? You’re so…into it.” 

“Kind of need it to live,” he replies. “Likin’ food ain’t that weird, darlin’.” 

“Yeah, but there’s _liking_ food, and then there’s-” she gestures vaguely at him “-whatever this is.” 

“You don’t like food?” 

And she stops, opens her mouth to reply, and then promptly closes it.

“I do,” she says slowly, and Rio nods. 

“You’re good at it.” 

She barks on a laugh. 

“At food?” 

He just hums in agreement, rocking back on his stool, and she shakes her head, oddly, suddenly, bashful. 

“Thanks.”

And then he’s talking about the job again, and Beth almost forgets all about it. 

6\. Almost, but not really, and maybe that night she goes home and she pulls out her old recipe books, and she makes the kids something rich and something divine, and she watches them glow and laugh and maybe she checks on the backdoor a few more times than she means to, wondering if he’s smelt it, wondering if it’ll call to him, like her grandmother always said it could, when you made it right. 

-

[Original post is here.](https://pynkhues.tumblr.com/post/183304284579/mmmm-what-abouta-head-canon-for-bethrio-and)


	6. Beth x Rio - Rio checking out Beth

Prompt: Rio checking Beth out

1\. Because the thing is, Rio hasn’t ever been shy. He was a smart, charming, popular kid who stepped easily into puberty, shot up to six foot and had a voice that slipped down a gravelly octave. If the girls (and sure, a couple of guys) nursed crushes in elementary school, by their freshman year of highschool, Rio could basically just smile, press his shoulder against a locker and he’d be guaranteed a home run (or, you know, at least third base).

2\. And as he got older, it only got easier. Between dealing dime bags and selling electronics, he’d drink with friends at bars or grace parties with a stop-in, and he’d see a girl who hit the right note for him then and there - usually curvy, with legs for days, and hair long enough to tangle his fist in - and he only needed enough time to look at them like that - to clock those thighs and that ass and that body, and they’re against the wall in the men’s room or in the backseat of his car or back at her place, on the floor, table, shower, bed. Wherever. He’s not fussy. 

3\. And it doesn’t matter if they’ve got boyfriends, if they’re married, if they haven’t fucked since that one guy. Rio’s not going to lie - he’s a little smug about how many people have him as their relationship hallpass. As the exception. As _That_ Guy. 

3\. Of course, he hasn’t always been so casual. There have been women who’ve stuck around, who he’s wanted to, one enough to have a kid with, but Rio knows what his life is, has had enough girls who’ve known him long enough call him a shadow or a ghost. He doesn’t exactly disagree. So the casual thing? It’s often just easier. 

4\. And the thing is, Rio doesn’t have a _specific_ type exactly, but even he can admit that Elizabeth isn’t really it. She’s older, paler, softer than his usual type, she drives a minivan and dresses like she doesn’t know there are stores outside of Target. Above it all though, she’s just so _high strung_. Rio’s job is high pressure enough, the last thing he needs when he’s trying to unwind is someone trying to Type A their way around his dick. 

5\. But….at the same time….it’s kind of fun seeing her fluster. Seeing exactly how pink he can make all that pale skin of hers go when he just looks at her the way he generally looks at women he wants to smash. It’s not like it’s any skin off his nose anyway - he likes looking at her, maybe a little too much. It’s not like she doesn’t have the curves to look at, and sure, maybe he spends a little more time than he wants to admit wondering just how far down that blush of hers goes, and wondering just what those curves look like without the Can-I-Speak-to-the-Manager-blouses and the mama-of-four jeans. 

6\. And he knows it effects her, even beyond the initial fluster. Has felt her gaze on him too - on the narrow line of his shoulders, on his lips, on his hands (bigger, always, then people think they should be on someone as lean as him. It’s cool. They’re not the only thing that is). And maybe he tries to make a point of catching her eye when she does it, just to see the way she bites her lip, the way she tries to shake herself out of it, and sure, her panties might not be on the floor of his car _yet_ , but he’s pretty sure he can get them there. 

7\. And if it was just that, he might even have already. Might have found a way to get her a little more relaxed, a little more comfortable. He figures she’s so visibly touch starved (weird, for someone with four kids) that a well-placed hand at the small of her back or a thumb to her cheek or her chin would make her pliant as anything. But it’s not just that. 

8\. Because she’s painful in a way that he’s never felt before - or at least in a way that he’s ever put up with. She talks back, she makes decisions about his money and his business she has no right to make, she acts like she’s a boss when she’s a footman _at best_ , and then she _gets him arrested_. And sure, he gets out on bail, and Demon picks him up and hands him his gun, and Rio goes to her house, and he should kill her, he’d do it to anyone else, but she’s there, and she’s crying, all that high strung energy on show, and he learns he’s right. She’s a lamb when he touches her chin. 

9\. And he doesn’t want it that way. Not with her. Maybe he does want all that Type A on top of him, beneath him, beside him after all. Wants her mad and high strung and just _her_ , that chest he can’t stop looking at heaving, those mama thighs clenched as she straddles him, wants to finally, _finally_ see just how far down that blush goes. 

-

[Original post is here.](https://pynkhues.tumblr.com/post/183416120884/how-many-times-has-rio-looked-beth-up-and-down)


	7. Beth x Rio - Touch

Prompt: Beth x Rio - Touch

1\. Because Rio’s a tactile guy, right? He always has been. When he was a kid, his mom used to say she worried he had a blind man’s spirit - the way he’d run his hands over the grain of the dining room table, over his sister’s dresses when they held onto him, onto hers, when she did. The way he’d fidget with cutlery and crayons, run his fingers on the soft underside of the flowers in pots in their yard, smooth them over his father’s notebook pages, where the man’s firm hand had dug little valleys with the letters, like a sunken braille. 

2\. There’s just something about touching things that he finds powerful. The tangibility of it all - the physicality, and he’d learnt as he’d gotten older that his hands could be used for so many things - to touch, yes, but to hit, to grip, to pull, to push, and each thing brought a certain, unique thrill - there was nothing like punching a guy who was asking for it - bruising his knuckles against somebody’s cheek, or like pulling a woman towards him, until her whole body pressed into his, or like gripping his baby son’s head that very first time, ripe in the gentle claw of his hand. 

3\. And, older still, he learnt that touch wasn’t just about him. Touching, and being touched? Those are two very different things. He discovered that his touch? It was powerful. That he could diffuse men and melt women with the right weight in his hand, that he could terrify with a few firm fingers as easily as he could unravel with them.

4\. So what, if it became another weapon in his arsenal? He’s not sure he’d be _him_ if he didn’t know how to use everything he had available to him. His parents taught him well, after all. 

5\. And the first few times he touches her? It’s not really a thing. So it’s his hand at the back of her neck when she’s tried to steal from him (again). So it’s a hand at her shoulder, leaving her flustered and unhappy at a cafe. And maybe he thinks about it more than he should, because she _doesn’t react_. That hand at the back of her neck? He’d felt her pulse - had his finger pressed into it, and felt it flutter in surprise then steady out. He’d grazed a hand against her shoulder, and she hadn’t even looked back at him, and that? That is _not_ how this is supposed to go. 

6\. But she doesn’t flinch, and isn’t that the point? Some yuppie housewife in her big house in the ‘burbs will look him right in the eye when he grabs her, and ignore him when he softens, and it pisses him off right up until the point that he realises he _likes it_. Because Elizabeth? She trusts him in that heavy way, that bone-deep way, like his sisters do, like his son does, and he’s not sure what to do with that. 

7\. At least, he’s not sure until she fucks him over, and he’s at her house, and her husband’s there, stupid and gormless, with that lazy fucking face, and he’s hitting him before he can stop himself. That satisfying crunch of his knuckles against this guy’s flesh, until the skin is splitting on the both of them, gasping like an open mouth, and then Elizabeth’s there, and Rio knows exactly how he wants to touch her. 

8\. Because it’s performance, right? He can feel her deadweight husband glaring daggers from the table, and for the first time, he can really feel her tremble, but when his fingers find her chin, she’s steady, and it’s like he’s touching the undersides of those flower petals at his childhood home all over again, she’s that fucking soft, and this was supposed to wreck her, not him, and so shooting her husband becomes the easiest thing in the world. 

9\. And when he dreams of her then, he remembers that softness. He remembers the way she looked at him, teary eyed and bright, the way she’d lent her soft skin into his calloused touch, and he wondered if she’d let him do it again back in reality, and she did, and she will, and he’s not sure he can stomach the thought of a life _without_ being able to touch her, at least not now, maybe not ever. 

10\. And she wants it, needs it, he knows she does, because she never leans away, never does anything but lean into it, her pulse steady and her eyes fixed, and he can never quite make unmake her, not entirely, can never quite make her either, and he realises that it doesn’t quite matter how many times he touches her, because it’s always like she’s touching him. 

-

[Original post is here.](https://pynkhues.tumblr.com/post/183465169434/what-is-your-head-canon-for-rio-and-touch-when-it)


	8. Beth x Rio - Pet Names

Prompt: Beth x Rio - Pet Names

1\. Because if we know one thing about Rio that’s not crime-related? It’s that he _loves_ a pet name. I mean, he calls Marcus Pop!!

2\. And that first time he calls Elizabeth sweetheart? Well, it rolls off the tongue a little easier than asking why this yuppy, suburban bitch stole his money. More flies with honey, that sort of thing. It fits her too - knows it from looking at the photos on her mantle while they wait for her to get there, fits when he sees her, frightens her, makes her scream - this pre-packaged starter wife with her blue, bambi eyes and her decorated dollhouse and he figures there ain’t a thing about this woman that isn’t _sweet_. And honestly? Rio ain’t ever been that big on sweet. 

3\. But then, maybe she isn’t quite as sweet as he thinks. At least, she wasn’t when he had Demon’s gun to her head, her eyes firming up and her voice steady as she dragged him in a way no sweet girl has done before, and when he comes back for her next time, it’s to her son, outside on his own, pouring over math homework while little voices babble inside. He can hear her voice too, even if he can’t quite make out what she’s saying, and it’s softer, lighter than he thinks is really fair. 

And look, the kid is really struggling, so Rio helps, what the hell? He ain’t exactly wanting to bust into her living room to a bunch of pale, bambi-eyed kids - he knows _exactly_ how many questions they ask at that age, and he’s only got the one of them. At least this one out here is older, too confused by his homework to really question Rio’s presence there (and god, these people really live in a bubble), but then she’s out there too, furious and terrified, pulling her son back into the house, standing between Rio and the door, like she could do anything if he wanted to get in, and calling her _mama_ only makes sense. 

4\. It’s _baby_ when she’s playin’, and _honey_ when she’s fucked him over, and it’s Elizabeth when he wants her just to _listen_. Not that she will, not that she ever really does. She might hear him, but he’s never met someone who seems to take so little heed at his words, and man, if that doesn’t piss him off as much as it makes him want to get her underneath him. He’s been at the top of this game for long enough most people know not listening to him has consequences, and fuck, Elizabeth knows that too, and he can’t tell if she doesn’t take him seriously or if she just doesn’t care. Baby ain’t a rotten egg, she’s a loose fucking canon.

5\. And that should turn him off. He’s never played with unpredictability, at least not unless he’s driving it - he likes things in their place, but she tries to put him in his, and the darlin’ finds the tip of his tongue and lives there for a while, because even when he hates her, she’s something to him, in him, on his skin and under it, and it scares him a little, how much he likes it.

6\. “I don’t know _how_ ,” she tells him again from the other side of the park bench. She’d put as much distance between them as possible, but it’s never quite as much as she thinks. She’s playing at being relaxed, her fingers looped together, make believe casual, like he can’t see her white knuckled grip, watching her littlest girl zip down the slide, and Rio resists the urge to roll his eyes. . 

“You’ll figure it out, mama,” he says, starting to rock up to stand, when she juts her chin out quickly to where Marcus is starting towards the swings. 

“Am I supposed to start calling you daddy?” she asks, and then immediately reddens, bright as a traffic light, like she didn’t hear the implication until she’d said it, and it’s enough to startle a laugh out of him. He gets up, closing the distance between them until he’s standing over her, casting a shadow down across her. She looks studiously away, and he just grins, dropping his hands to the back of the bench, either side of her shoulders, and leaning forwards to bracket her. She still won’t look him in the eye.

“Only if you want to,” he purrs, close to her ear, watching her squirm back from his hot breath. He straightens with a grin, calls out to Pop, and is off, leaving her red and breathless behind him. 

-

[Original post is here.](https://pynkhues.tumblr.com/post/183506443179/headcanons-on-beth-x-rio-pet-names)


	9. Beth x Rio - Hickies

Prompt: Beth x Rio - Hickies

1\. Because to Beth? To Beth hickies are things that you give and you get in highschool, and maybe college (not that she’d really know). I mean, unless you’re _Annie_ , but Beth is Not Annie. 

2\. Dean had only ever given her a couple, and the memories of them are almost foreign to her now - like he was sucking them onto someone else - little, half-baked things that she’d squirmed away from, giggling and flushed and painfully young. Even still, she has the stark memory even then of mostly just being embarrassed by them. Flushing hot when Ruby’s eyes found them, her lips twisting into a half grin as she’d scrunch up her face and say ew. Beth kind of agreed with the sentiment. 

3\. And the thing she learns very, very quickly about Rio? Is that he _loves_ them. 

4\. “Nah,” he tells her later, when she accuses him of this, his thumb finding the one he’d bitten onto her clavicle, the callous of his rough hands going straight to her gut. He huffs out a laugh. “Just love ‘em on you.” 

5\. She thinks it’s because she’s so pale. They spring up like little rosebuds, bright and red, above the snowy white of her skin, and were she more of a romantic, she thinks she could say something about this spring he’s brought about in the winter of her, but she’s not a romantic, maybe never has been, so she covers the one’s he’s sucked into her neck, behind her ear, her wrist with make-up and scarves, thankful that the bigger, redder ones are reserved for the insides of her thighs and the skin beside her nipples, and the doughy flesh of her ass, and they’re easier to hide at least, even if she can feel them long after he’s rolled out of bed. 

6\. And she thinks he knows they bug her, can feel her shy away from them and he holds her so firm, so _strong_ , and yet she knows if she really tried, he’d let her go, and that if she asked, he’d stop. 

7\. Only….maybe they don’t bug her _that much_. Knows that she feels a thrill every time she sees them in her bathroom mirror, or her jeans rub tenderly against one. Something in it - about feeling wanted, and desired, about feeling claimed in a way that Dean never made her feel. 

8\. And maybe that’s what she’s thinking that night when she presses into his side, teeth nipping at his ear lobe, her lips kissing down his neck, finding the pulse point, and she’s never done it before, never left one, isn’t entirely sure she knows how, but she sucks enough, bites enough, in the way she’s felt him do to her, and his hand finds the back of her head and she thinks he’s going to push her off him, but he’s pulling her closer, coaxing her, she realises, and it makes something twist inside her, and she bites a little harder. 

9\. They’re not red on him. They’re a darker brown, like a bruise, and they’re almost hidden below the claw of his eagle tattoo. It’s not the same exactly, can’t be, but she finds something inside her uncurl all the same, something that thrills at seeing him at drops, tucked between his boys, her claim on him as clear as a brand, and _oh_ , she thinks.

Oh. 

-

[Original post is here.](https://pynkhues.tumblr.com/post/183561279689/your-thoughts-re-brio-hickies)


	10. Beth x Rio - Rio watching out for Beth

Prompt: Beth x Rio - Rio watching out for Beth

1\. It’s one of his best guys who calls her _Pleasantville_ after that first visit to her house, who doesn’t say it, but gives Rio a look like _you want to go this hard on a good girl like that_ , and Rio tells him straight that no good girl colours in her kid’s toy gun and robs a grocery store vault of half a million dollars. At least, not any good girl he knows. And sure, maybe the three of them are in over their heads, but if they could rob him blind, they could pay him back, or they could suffer the consequences. 

2\. And he tells himself that keeping tabs on their trip to Canada ain’t about the wideness of her bambi eyes or that mama softness around her hips, but about keeping tabs on his product. And it is, because that paper is an investment he ain’t willing to let slide, not like a couple of g, and if it has the added effect of getting those three suburban bitches home to their toothy little kids? Well, it’s no skin off his nose. 

3\. But then Eddy’s showing up at the warehouse in her van, a stuffed rabbit on the dashboard and bullet holes in the trunk, and he figures he shouldn’t really care, doesn’t, really, but still. “You remember where you got it from? Take it back.” and he ignores the stares of Cisqo and Bullet behind him, Eddy’s confused look in front of him and heads back inside. He’s never really felt the need to explain himself, and he’s not really sure right now that he could. 

4\. And he tries to give her advice, against his better judgement, tries to get her lookin’ out for herself a little better, tries to get her to deal with her rotten eggs and keep better tabs on her little harem of mamas, but she doesn’t seem to get that that body and that face and that middle class, white lady invisibility of hers is only going to protect her so long. That leapin’ full bodied with her eyes shut into every damn thing is going to get her pissing off the wrong person one of these days - he should know. He’s usually the wrong person. 

5\. And even after he shoots her damn husband, she doesn’t get it. She’s still got those wide, bambi eyes, that mama softness at her hips, thinks she can spin little homespun truths about shooting a man in the back of the head on her daughter’s nursery drop cloths without batting an eyelash, like she’s _that hard_ , and he has to stop himself from sayin’ she won’t ever be. 

6\. But then he’s out her house again for the third night in a row, only this time she comes outside, and he watches curiously as she bolts a stop sign down her street, then sees him, closing the distance between them so slow it takes almost all he has not to meet her halfway. And he doesn’t think he’s ever seen her this soft, this tired, this spread thin before him, like if he touched her she’d tear, only he does touch her, and she doesn’t even blink, and this isn’t the way this is supposed to go. She’s supposed to be afraid of him, at least a little, most girls he knows are, but then Elizabeth ain’t ever been quite afraid enough, and he figures if she ain’t goin’ to take care of herself, if she ain’t goin’ to protect herself, he may as well. 

“Are you going to kill me?” 

“I’m gonna teach you.” 

-

[Original post is here.](https://pynkhues.tumblr.com/post/183580280899/uughhhh-i-just-need-rio-watching-out-for-beth)


	11. Beth x Rio - Beth's Body

Prompt: Beth x Rio - Rio Admiring Beth's Body

1\. Because I mean, like, he’s so _blatant_. And like, he noticed the first time they met - I mean, you can’t not notice assets like that, but noticing is one thing and _noticing_ is another, and so maybe he didn’t really think much of it until she’s delivering a few boxes of wrapping paper to him and telling him what she needs him to do, and there’s something in the way she says it that taps a part of him rarely woken up by women like her, and so lookin’ at her ass as she walks away from him? It’s just enough to make him bite the inside of his cheek. 

2\. And then it’s that wrap dress at her kid’s birthday party, and she’s stroppin’ at him in her bedroom about the job she fucked up, and all he can think is one tug on that ribbon around her waist and he’d be unwrapping her like a present. 

3\. After that, he kind of makes a point of it. Usually it’s a good distraction, you know? She’s mouthin’ off, or tryin’ to tell him what to do, and he thinks about how easy it’d be to open up that blouse or slide his hands up beneath those sweaters she fills so well, and then maybe those thoughts get a little filthier - like if she’d still talk to him like that with one of those Jessica Rabbit tits in his mouth, or how wet he could get those full-brief mama panties if he ever told her the things he’s thought about doing to her, late at night, on his own, his hand around his cock.

4\. Because if the way she reacts is anything to go by, he doesn’t think Car Man’s fucked her right, at least not any time recently, not in the way a woman like her should be fucked. Somethin’ tells him there’s a king beneath all that starter wife softness, and a king deserves better than missionary and some lazy, half-assed fuck. 

5\. And he realises, looking at her, that there ain’t a way he _doesn’t_ want her. Wants her on top of him, beneath him, her back against the wall, on the floor, on her hands and knees, wants her open mouthed and panting, thighs trembling, wants to bury his face in her neck, in those big, round tits, in between her legs, just _in her_. 

6\. It used to just take a look too. A quick glance, and he’d see it - the hot flush at her neck, the way her breath would hitch, and maybe it got him off a little, knowing how easy it was to wind her tighter, but maybe he’s done it too much, maybe she’s used to it, because she catches his gaze and she just keep talking. Maybe the most he gets out of her is her adjusting that big purse or deliberately holding his gaze a little firmer when it finds it’s way back to her face, and so fuck it, he thinks, if she’s gonna play it that way, maybe he’ll let himself look a little longer, maybe he’ll let some of those thoughts slip to the forefront of his mind, play out on his face, in the heat of his stare, and he does, but if she notices, she doesn’t let it show. 

7\. And well, maybe that winds _him_ a little tighter. Not many women have wormed their way this deep, and even less have been able to hold his gaze that long, not with their panties still on, and so what if he runs a little hotter when he’s near her, when he’s not? So what if thoughts of her take up a little more space in his head? So what if he spends a little more time rifling through the fantasies and wondering which will be the one where it happens? Because hell, he doesn’t think there’s a person in a room with them who can’t feel it, who can’t know that he’ll get her there. It’s just a question of when. 

-

[Original post is here.](https://pynkhues.tumblr.com/post/183635202884/i-feel-like-such-a-pervert-but-with-you-bringing)


	12. Beth x Rio - Rio kept her underwear

Prompt: Beth x Rio - Rio kept her underwear

1\. Because I mean, he snapped them off, right? 

2\. And Beth’s breath was already lost to her, but when he did that? It was gone.

3\. Because the thing is, Rio might call her _sweetheart_ , he might call her _darling, baby, honey_ , but Rio has never treated her like she was delicate. He’s never talked to her about sandwiches or treated her like she _couldn’t_. Like she was fragile. Like any decision might break her little mind, like any weighht might snap her brittle bones. Rio has always asked more of her, always added weight to her bar and told her to learn how to lift it. Has never doubted that she _could_.

4\. And that’s the way he fucks her too. Hard and fast over the bathroom sink, and then slower, steadier on top of it, his cock bigger, driving deeper than Dean’s ever did, his fingers finding her centre, his teeth at her pulse, and her hands cling and scramble and hit and cling again as he gets her off, and then again, her first (and second) orgasm at someone else’s hands in longer than she wants to admit. 

5\. And after he just looks at her, his eyes soft as he pushes her hair off her face, out of her own eyes. She’s still propped up on the bathroom sink, her legs spread and his seed leaking out of her, and god, she thinks, as he pushes his thumb gently into her mouth, just enough for her to suck it, leave a lipstick rim around the base of it as he pulls it out. 

6\. He doesn’t speak as he moves away from her, tugs pants back on, and then reaches for the scrap of blue lace on the floor, his fingers curling around them intricately, and even she can see how wet they are, can almost smell them, but Rio just grins at her, pushing them into the back pocket of hist jeans. 

“See you real soon, yeah?” he says, before ducking out the door. 

-

[Original is posted here.](https://pynkhues.tumblr.com/post/183692352969/this-is-gross-but-headcanon-rio-kept-her)


	13. Beth x Rio - Smug Rio has what Beth needs

Prompt: Beth x Rio - a smug, happy Rio who knows he's got what Beth needs

1\. Because I mean, he feels it too, you know? He’s been around the block enough to know when someone’s layin’ somethin’ down, and sure, maybe Elizabeth ain’t always there, but he can feel it often enough, the way she looks at him sometimes, her lips wet and those big, baby blue eyes of hers wide, and so what if he makes a point of touching her? He ain’t actin’ on anything she ain’t invitin’. 

2\. And then she’s makin’ eyes at him across the bar, her knees apart, a hand playing with her hair as she sits opposite her moron husband, and Rio thinks how easy it’d be to take her apart. To pull her back into his car and get her pressed into the leather backseats, that dress up around her waist, all that pale skin on show, only that’s not what happens, well, not exactly. What happens is she gets up, and she’s in the bathroom, but she doesn’t lock it, and like he said. He knows an invitation when he sees one. 

3\. But man, it got him off - her, impossibly tight cunt for that mama-of-four shit she’s always tellin’ him, her thighs up around his waist, mewing like a kitten in his ear while said-moron-husband what? Checked out some waitress who wouldn’t touch his car-salesman-dick in a million years? Not Rio’s fault the asshole didn’t know what he had. 

4\. Because Rio? Rio knows _exactly_ what he has, and the second he gets his hands on her, he knows exactly what this woman needs. He can barely pry his lips off her neck anyway, sucking hickies in places he knows her hair will hide, his fingers on her clit until he’s coaxed her through at least two - maybe three orgasms. He ain’t countin’. He doesn’t need to. Whatever keeps her squirming in his grip, yipping little _yesses_ little Rio’s into the side of his head? That’s all the evidence he needs that he’s doin’ his job _right_. 

5\. Because fuck, what is Car Man gonna do? Try and throw another punch? Let him try and eyefuck whatever barely legal girl is out there awkwardly giggling, drinking her watered down cocktails by the bar. Rio’s happy to be in here, real-fuckin’ his steel-rod, bourbon-downin’, boss of a wife. 

-

[Original post is here.](https://pynkhues.tumblr.com/post/183741192404/any-chance-of-headcannon-on-rio-being-smughappy)


	14. Beth x Rio - Bourbon

Prompt: Beth x Rio - Rio taking the cash and leaving the bourbon

1\. He’d only thought of the bourbon afterwards, walking home from the bar, his body still thrumming with the memory of hers.

2\. Because he was always taking it back. Of course he was, he ain’t ever been accused of being a bleeding heart, and more than a few million dollars in monopoly money ain’t somethin’ he’s gonna part with lightly, not when he’s got legal fees pilin’ up and a crew chompin’ at the bit to get back to work.

3\. Givin’ it to her in the first place had been mostly a curiosity during the shutdown anyway. She’s fancied herself a boss before, with all her lady shoppers and however she got her hands on all that chemical shit (and really, if he didn’t sometimes wonder how she did that), he wanted to see how much it would take for her to start acting like one again.

4\. And he’d figured it out pretty quick, when his boys reported stacks missing, and the bill numbers showed up in car yards and at wholesalers, and his ex had asked him what had him smilin’ like that when he’d gone to pick up Marcus, and he’d shrugged and told her she should know how much he likes being right.

5\. He just wishes he could’ve seen her face though, directing his boys to unload the cash from the truck, tongue darting out to lick his lips. Wishes he could’ve seen those eyes of hers widen, see if she lost her breath, that pale neck of hers flush like it did when he usually pissed her off, like it had when he’d buried his face in it, and he’s thrumming again, almost bouncing on his toes, because he’s going to see her tonight, and then? Then he’s back in business.

-

[Original post is here.](https://pynkhues.tumblr.com/post/183764725974/head-cannon-request-on-rio-taking-the-cash-and)


	15. Beth x Rio - Rio going down on Beth for the first time

Prompt: Beth x Rio - Rio going down on Beth for the first time

1\. Because I mean, like, Beth’s an avoider, you know? And maybe since that first bathroom break, there’s been one or two more. Quick and dirty, her pants around her knees and his fingers on her, in her, his breath hot at the back of her neck. 

2\. And then he’s asking her what she wants to call them and she’s feeling her toes curl in her shoes, and her stomach clench, and you know what? “Let’s just not label it.” 

3\. And he exhales one of those deep, breathy laughs he does like she’s the one being ridiculous. Like she’s the one pretending like this is more than just blowing off steam, like it’s anything other than two grown ups in close proximity getting what they need. 

4\. Because she’s not stupid. She knows what they look like, knows there must be some novelty in it for him about bending her over sinks and counters, pressing her into walls, pulling her into his lap. Knows that he must look at her and see right through her at the end of it all - that she’s not a boss bitch, that she’s just a mother, just a wife, like Dean has always told her. 

5\. Only…he doesn’t really fuck her that way, not really, not even a little bit, and certainly not now, his hands tugging her pants and her panties down all at once as she wriggles up her bed, her thighs quivering already in anticipation of his touch, and she pulls him against her, hand around his neck as he kisses down hers, his own hand tugging at her shirt, and then he’s kissing down her chest, leaving a trail of heat, and she doesn’t realise where he’s heading until he’s pushing her thighs apart. 

6\. “ _No_ ,” she hisses, and he looks up at her, briefly surprised, his tanned, too handsome face bracketed between her pale, trembling thighs, and she can feel herself flush, squirming back against the pillows. 

“No?” he repeats, a question in his tone, and Beth curls her toes in the sheets, tries to move back enough to close her legs, but Rio grabs her calves and holds her where she is. 

And Dean had never liked it, had never been very _good_ at it, too soft, too obvious in thinking about what he’d be able to get her to do after he’d done it, and she can’t quite look Rio in the eye.

“I mean,” she flusters. “You don’t have to.” 

But then Rio’s just rolling his eyes, makes a noise of genuine annoyance, yanking her legs to pull her closer and his mouth finding her centre, and Beth is really, really glad they’re alone and at her house for once, because the high pitched keen she makes? She’s pretty sure it echoes off the ceiling.

7\. Because he’s as rough with his tongue as he is with everything else, pressing it hard against her clit, licking, sucking, _fucking_ her with it, and she slams one of her heels into his back, hard enough she’s sure it’ll leave a bruise, might try to do it with the other one, but he pushes her thigh aside, opens her up further, takes his mouth off her cunt just long enough to bite hard into the pale skin of her inner thigh, and she’s almost _crying_ it’s so good by the time he pushes two fingers into her, curling them until she sees stars. 

8\. And he doesn’t even fuck her afterwards. Just takes himself in hand and gets himself off with a few quick strokes, grabs a tissue from her bedside table to clean himself up and flops back up beside her on the bed, a shit-eating grin on his face, his lips still wet with her - - _her_. 

9\. And then it’s her who’s rolling her eyes, trying to hide her own smile as she slaps his chest and tries to ignore the way her noodle arm wobbles, and she means to roll away, only he’s grabbing her wrist and pulling her close, until her head is on his chest and his chin is soft against her hair, and Beth’s toes are curling and her stomach is clenching all over again. 

-

[Original post is here.](https://pynkhues.tumblr.com/post/183802134544/headcannon-of-rio-going-down-on-beth-for-the-first)


	16. Beth x Rio - Bathroom Break

Prompt: Beth x Rio - Rio losing his cool in the bathroom 

1\. Because of all the ways he thought it would happen? This ain’t it. 

2\. Because he _has_ thought about it, more than he’d care to admit. About the moment this tension between them might finally snap - never even really doubted that it _would_. He usually gets what he wants after all, and it’s becoming more and more obvious to himself (and, annoyingly, to his boys, who might not say anything, but he catches them sneaking looks at each other when they see her in a way he really needs to shut down) that there’s something deep down and primal in him that wants _her_. 

3\. He’d thought it might’ve happened at her house, on that big-ass sofa in her living room, with her mouth tasting like pinot after girls’ night or bourbon after a job, or maybe on the backseat of her mama van, kicking away sippy cups and soccer shin guards, her body warm and a little flushed from stressin’ over errands, and then, better, from his mouth. From his hands. 

4\. But he hadn’t seen it happenin’ like this. Not her a few drinks deep with the husband, goin’ to _his_ bar, givin’ _him_ those eyes, lockin’ the bathroom door and pullin’ up her skirt, showing just a flash of blue lace and miles of snowy skin, and he waits until she’s sure - doesn’t want to fuck her any other way - wants this first time (because hell if it’s gonna be the last) all on her, and she makes it pretty clear, pretty fast, she ain’t here to play. 

5\. And she’s clenching hard around him, scrambling at his back, and he’s fucking her right, he is, until she starts to keen, until those too-soft fingers of hers brush the hot skin of his neck, just over the collar of his shirt, and is it the first time she’s touched him? Really touched him? He can’t stop the way his breath quickens, the way it sounds, hoarse into the hollow her neck makes, and he’s holding her tighter and he’s fucking her harder and she keeps yipping and she keeps _touching him_ and he needs her to stop, he needs her to keep going, he just. - - he needs _her_.

-

[Original post is here.](https://pynkhues.tumblr.com/post/183808408064/phew-i-keep-watching-that-scene-rio-is-so-in)


	17. Beth x Rio - Spontaneous Sex

Prompt: Beth x Rio - Spontaneous sex

1\. So maybe it’s another bathroom stall with the door unlocked, and she promises herself twice doesn’t make it a habit, twice is just twice, and besides, she’s not got her ass up on the dirty sink this time anyway, although she’s not sure this is much better, her front almost flush against the wall as he yanks her back by the hips, shoving her slacks down forcefully, his lips on the back of her neck, breathing hot, his fingers snaking around her front to find her clit, and it’s almost not fair, she thinks, trying to suppress a moan, how good he is at this too. 

2\. And then it’s him in the passenger seat of her minivan, arguing hotly about Dean’s latest fuck up as he tells her to _just be a boss bitch and take care of it_ , and so she’s pulling over on the side of the highway and swinging a leg over him, telling him to take off his jeans as she pushes up her pencil skirt, and at least Rio doesn’t need to be told to do anything twice. 

3\. The bricks at the bar are scratching at her back, tearing at her skin even through the thin cotton of her shirt, the cool evening air making it sting, and she hasn’t had sex outside since - - well, ever, but she knows that she’s pissed him off just enough that he, for some reason, views hooking one of her legs over his shoulders and tongue fucking her in the alley behind a bar as, what? Punishment? She’s not sure, but it certainly doesn’t feel like it as she scratches her nails through the static of his close-cropped hair, as he brings her, gasping, over the edge. 

4\. Dean swears they’ve got a buyer for one of the ‘vettes, but the guy falls through at the last minute, and Beth sends him home with his tail between his legs and stays at the office until after midnight doing paperwork because the thought of seeing him at home makes her feel sick. For whatever reason, she’s not surprised when Rio shows up, his face softer than she knows what to do with, and when she rants about the three corvettes they still can’t sell, frustrated tears building in the corners of her eyes (because she’d _trusted_ Dean, too many times), Rio takes her hand and brushes a thumb over her tight knuckles, and tells her he might know a guy, and she tells him no. She’ll find someone herself. He nods, (trusting her) before an impish grin finds his face. “Ever fucked in the backseat of one?” And that’s how she ends up on her back, spread out and naked on the leather seats, Rio’s lips grinning at her breast as he works his way inside her, and she really has no idea how they’re going to get those stains out. 

5\. She thinks they’ve done it almost everywhere except a bed by the time they actually get into one, and it’s not fair. It’s not fair, because he’s hurt, because he showed up at her backdoor with blood in his mouth and a limp to his step, and she’d made sure the kids were all asleep before she’d brought him to her bedroom, to her ensuite, helped him shower, clean himself up, get him back to bed in a pair of Dean’s old sweats which go passed his toes and sag at his waist, and it makes him look boyish and sweet in a way she knows he isn’t. 

Beth asks him what happened and he tells her “It ain’t none of your concern,” and she knows better than to push tonight (although he doesn’t know her at all if he thinks she’ll drop it), and she wants to just lie down with him, but then he’s curling up against her, his aching fingers unbuttoning her pyjama shirt, and she says, “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” and he just looks at her, soft, and he kisses her, hard enough she can taste the blood still in his mouth, and then his fingers are inside her and she’s squirming against him as she tries not to touch any of his new bruises. 

And then he’s pulling her on top of him and he’s trying to push his cock against her, but _no_ , she thinks, kissing down his chin, his chest, finding his cock and sucking it into her mouth, relishing in his grunt of surprise above her, and it occurs to her that they haven’t done this yet, that _she_ hasn’t, in _years_ , had never really liked it, but she wants to here, with him, wants to ease some of the strain on him, wants to try and replace the memories of whatever happened tonight, with the memory of _this_ , and from the way he sounds, his fingers soft, carding through her hair, she thinks she just might. 

-

[Original post is here.](https://pynkhues.tumblr.com/post/183832297589/im-ready-for-spontaneous-brio-sex-anywhere)


	18. Beth x Rio - Rio jealous of Dean

Prompt: Rio being jealous of Dean being with/around Beth because I definitely felt some bitterness from him when Beth asked him not to tell Dean.

1\. He knows she hasn’t told him before he even asks from the stupid look on her husband’s face, and the colour of hers - always pale, but never this ashen, her breath visibly caught in her throat, even from across the lot. And look, sure, he’s not exactly _proud_ of the gleeful tick to his grin at the thought of actually being there for this part, but whatever. He’s never pretended to be better than that.

2\. Because really, there’s something he’s always found a little _too_ satisfying about taking things that don’t belong to him. About the challenge of loosening a person’s grasp on something just enough to slip it out from between their fingers and into his, no matter what that is. About the look on the asshole’s face when they realise Rio’s got everything that used to be theirs. Not that he thinks Car Man’s grip was ever that tight on Elizabeth anyway, but whatever. Rio knows what gets him off.

3\. Only she’s saying _don’t_ , her voice small and her eyes unblinking, and there’s something desperate enough in her tone that tampers all that glee, and that? That ain’t fair. 

4\. His eyes find Car Man and he thinks he probably knows it somewhere deep down, but can’t believe it. Can’t imagine his pretty, suburban starter wife with her big blue eyes and too-soft skin getting bent over by somebody who looks like him, and Rio would be open to a _demonstration_ if he didn’t feel like Elizabeth would bolt. 

5\. So he bites his tongue, and then bites it again when she tells him he can _have whatever he wants_ , and hopes she realises what it takes to let her get into that asshole’s car instead of getting her into _his_. 

6\. And so what if he maybe grips the steering wheel a little harder, missing the tire iron, so what if he gets home, feeling almost jittery in his restlessness to the point he goes out again, thankful his ex has Marcus for the week, and heads straight to the 24-hour gym a few blocks away, strapping his fists and hitting the speed ball until his knuckles bruise. It doesn’t get the image of her lifting her skirt out of his head, of her husband behind her at their painfully middle class bathroom sink, of his hands - - 

7\. And nah. He’s not doin’ that. 

8\. Or maybe he is, because he drops by the dealership during opening hours, mostly out of sight as her husband sucks the oxygen out of any possible sale (and Jesus, that’s going to be something he’s going to have to deal with soon. He’s got timelines, after all) and he sees her out there too, all mama sweetness as she shows somebody else’s wife how to get a stroller into a minivan that could be hers, and everybody’s smiling in that glossy magazine ad way, and something’s tightening low in his gut that he doesn’t want to give a name to. 

9\. And something must happen, because the next time he’s there ready to tell her he’s handled her little _body_ problem, planning to tell her that the next thing she’ll be doing is handling her little _rotten egg_ problem, the husband ain’t anywhere in sight. It’s just her, too-sweet and awkward on the little screen, and then pissed off and firm in front of him, and there’s something sparking in her he ain’t seen in a while, and so instead of telling her what she’s got to do, he’s asking her _what she wants to call them_ , and then it’s business until someone’s calling her _Mrs. Boland_ , and his toes are curling in his shoes, and he has to touch her, has to lean in, to remind her all the ways that she isn’t.

-

[Original post is here.](https://pynkhues.tumblr.com/post/184001368794/begging-for-headcanon-please-rio-being-jealous-of)


	19. Beth x Rio - Insecure!Beth and Confident!Rio

Prompt: oooh that ama answer about Beth being insecure was so well-thought out *claps* any chance we could get a headcannon about insecure Beth and confident Rio in a romantic/sex situation?

1\. There’s a moment, somewhere, sometime, between Rio and his hand around the tire iron and his hand around hers, where she thinks - - _Oh_.  
It’s going to happen again.

2\. And it’s not that she’d ever thought of it as a one time thing exactly. To do that, she’d have had to have thought about it at all, and - - and she _has_ , in certain ways - - in the way his fingers felt at her thighs, around her breasts, pulling her neck towards his wet mouth, the way _he’d_ felt, _long_ and _thick_ , buried so deep inside her she’d seen stars, his body warm, pressed so tightly against hers it was like he’d tug away her skin, break open her bones, to sink into her that much closer, and.

Yes.

She’s thought about _that_.

3\. But she figured it was scratching an itch. She figured once they’d done it – once she’d felt him, once he’d _had_ her, that would be it. She’d have a fantasy to draw upon on lonely nights with her vibrator, and he’d have a few loaded jokes in his arsenal and another notch in his bedpost, but that whatever this thing between them was – the thing that wasn’t work – the looks and the touches and the _keys_. That stuff would all be done.

4\. Only it’s not. Only it’s worse. Only he stands too close, touches her more, looks at her like he knows _exactly_ what she looks like naked, and that? That’s not _right_. Or _fair_. Because he doesn’t. Because there are things you can’t know until you know a body - like the white stretch marks curling like skeleton fingers at her hips, or the c-section scar that never quite settled at her panty line or the softness of her middle, the birthmark below her breast, and look, it’s one thing to have her dress around her hips, his fingers inside her, it’s another to be - - _you know_. And besides, she can count on (less than) two hands the number of people who’ve seen her naked, and four of those, she’s made. 

5\. So it happens like this - - they kiss. They kiss and it’s perfect, because neither of them are, and yet somehow this _is_ , and it’s soft until it’s not. Soft until he wants _more_ , until he decides that all of her is all he wants, and his mouth firms and his teeth scrape her bottom lip, and his hands pull her close, cup her ass before reaching for the fly on her pants, and she’s breathless with how quick he pushes them down, tripping her back towards the bed, pushing her down to yank them off. And then he’s on top of her, his body warm, his hands on her thighs, pulling her up, until she can feel his jean-clad, half-hard cock push almost painfully against her panty-clad cunt, and she gasps, scrambling against him, as he reaches for the buttons on her shirt.

6\. And she can’t help it. The way her hand goes up, clutching at the fabric of her blouse, holding it together, and it must be obvious, because Rio stops, pushing back a little over her, watching her curiously, and she meets his gaze, and she’s not sure what he reads in her face, because suddenly he’s smirking, pushing her legs back – her calves into her thighs, like a reverse yogi child’s pose – and then pushing off her, until he’s standing again.

7\. And he’s slow as he does it – unbuttoning his shirt, gaze fixed on her, a loaded grin tugging at his lips as he watches her, flat on her back on the bed in her white panties, clutching her blouse to her chest like some sort of modesty belt, her gaze fixed right back on him as he pulls apart his shirt to reveal miles of tanned skin and a leanly muscled body.

He takes his shirt off entirely, dropping it to the floor, watching her closely, and she’s not sure what face she’s making, but he’s huffing out a laugh when he drops his hands to his belt, making careful, certain work of unbuckling it and pulling it off. He pauses with it briefly, as if debating something in his head, and then tilts his head – a conversation with himself ( _not this time_ ) – as he drops it to the floor.

And then it’s his pants.

Then his underwear.

8\. And it’s not like Beth hasn’t thought about what he’d look like naked. Of course she has. She’s a housewife who, before _that_ bathroom break a few weeks ago, had had a dry spell that had lasted half a decade, and Rio was. Well. _Rio_. Even before the bathroom break. He was tall and lean and _dangerous_ , with a voice that twisted her up inside and a swagger she hadn’t seen outside of movies. And then he’d fucked her, and she hadn’t really been able to think of much else, and now there, standing at the side of her bed, he looks like something carved – hard (in every sense of the word) and firm and perfect. Statuesque. _Designed_.

9\. She can hear her own breath when he gets back to her, looping his fingers in her soaked panties and tugging them down in one fell swoop, and he leans in to kiss her where she opens, to bite at her thigh before he peels back up, his hands on hers, tugging them too gently from where they’re still clutched into her blouse.

10\. “Darlin’, I wanna _see you_ ,” he purrs, and Beth lets him guide her arms up over his shoulders, lets his fingers make nimble work of her buttons, exposing more and more pale flesh as he does it, and when it’s finally off, he just stares at her, and all Beth can think of is her stretch marks and her c-section scar and all the ways she’s soft, and in-firm, her body _unmade_ after four children, only he’s above her and he makes a sound she’s never heard him make before – something between a shaky breath and a primal groan, something she wants to hear again and again and again, and she watches him, watching her, and she lowers her hand off his shoulder, back behind her, unhooking her bra strap, and she’s shrugging out of it, watching his lower lip hang open, his tongue dart out, and _oh_ , Beth thinks again.

_Oh._

\- 

[Original post is here.](https://pynkhues.tumblr.com/post/184005083619/oooh-that-ama-answer-about-beth-being-insecure-was)


	20. Beth x Rio - Meeting Pre-Canon

Prompt: Omg what do you think it would be like if rio amd beth met when they were younger? Before the kids?

1\. Because maybe Beth’s a couple of years out of highschool and in the time between caring for her sick mother, and looking after a pre-pubescent Annie, she tries to make some extra cash teaching piano to kids in and out of their neighbourhood, and maybe it’s one of Rio’s sisters who sees the flyer on the noticeboard at the library, who begs their mom for lessons – they have abuela’s old piano in the living room anyway – who promises to do all her chores without complaining (like Elena can do anything without complaining), and who finally gets her way.

And Rio’s thirteen and only really hanging around to make fun of how musically illiterate Elena’s bound to be (girl has _no_ rhythm or artistic flare, not like their abuela), and he ain’t even thinkin’ what the teacher’s gonna look like, but he didn’t expect her to look like _that_. And there’s something to it, he knows it even then, with the way her hair catches the afternoon, afterschool light just right, with the way her fingers dance over the piano keys as she takes Elena through scales and songs, and so maybe he hangs around a little more often, dangling off the back of the sofa for the hour-long lessons, even as Elena glowers at him from the piano stool, and maybe he’s a little jealous of the way Elena’s leg presses up against the teacher’s there, or the way the teacher holds Elena’s fingers, ghosting them over the keys, and it wouldn’t be a big deal until his sisters start talking about his _crush_ , cooing and singing, and he’s punching Carmen in the arm, and she’s pushing him off the chair to sit on him with her fat ass and it’s not a crush, it’s _not_.

2\. Or maybe it’s like this:

Maybe Rio’s eighteen and he’s dealing pills out the back of his cousin’s restaurant – nothin’ fancy, just a bit of ecstasy, a bit of MDMA, and one of his boys brings round a new buyer who looks like the hardest thing she’s done is weed and wine coolers.

“Nah, she’s cool,” his boy says, and Rio looks her over, and this girl is short and _young_ , wearing glittery neon eye shadow and a nervous grin, but whatever, Rio thinks, a sale is a sale, and it’s all good until a car door slams shut and there’s the sound of heels clipping down the pavement and there’s an energy in the air suddenly he hasn’t felt before. The girl’s eyes clench shut, and then she’s babbling, without even looking.

“Oh, god,” the girl says, opening her eyes again, staring, “Okay, I’m already sorry, please know that. This is about to be very embarrassing for all of us, and I just want to say that I - -”

Whatever else she’s about to say, he doesn’t hear, because suddenly the girl’s being yanked back by five foot seven of pure _fox_ , and he’s grinning before he can stop himself, drinking her in as the woman (and she can’t be too much older than him, maybe her mid-twenties) reads the girl for filth.

“I can’t _believe_ you,” she continues. “What would mom and dad say? I’m serious, Annie, this is a new low, even for you. You have no idea what this stuff is made of, I know you’ve seen the PSAs, they make it out of rat poison and - -”

And hang on, Rio thinks, his shit is _good_.

“Look, lady,” Rio says, striding forwards, and it must have been the wrong thing to say, because the woman is turning on him faster than he can blink, and he almost rocks back at the look of pure fury on her face.

“Don’t you _look, lady_ me,” she hisses, thrusting a finger in his face, before gesturing back at the girl. “She is fifteen years old. You are selling _drugs_ to a _child_.”

And then she seems to pause, narrow her eyes at him, take him in for the first time, and he rolls his shoulders back, rocks his jaw a little.

“I mean, god,” she says. “ _You’re_ a child. What on earth are you _doing_?”

And whatever he’d been expecting her to say, it wasn’t that.

“Excuse me?” he says, and the woman frowns, looking between Rio and his boys, and they might be young, but older, harder people than her have crossed the street to avoid them, and Rio’s thinking about getting up in her space when she says:

“I should take you all home. Tell your parents what you’ve been doing, how about that, huh?”

And her sister – Annie – she’s covering her face behind her, and saying, “Oh my god, Beth,” and he’s so stunned into silence and inaction that the woman – Beth – just keeps talking.

3\. Or maybe he’s sitting beside his sister, Carmen, at her antenatal class – and she’s been complaining about her swollen feet since he picked her up a half hour ago.

“I ain’t Miguel, no amount of bitchin’ is gonna make me rub them,” he tells her, and Carmen hits his arm, _hard_. It’s a full class, and it was supposed to start fifteen minutes ago, but they’ve been waiting on some deadbeat daddy to show, and Rio can tell the nurse running the thing doesn’t have the heart to tell the teary-eyed, red-cheeked mama that it’s pretty clear to everyone here her boy ain’t gonna turn up.

“He just had meetings all morning,” the woman says, and she’s older than him, but still _young_ , hands low on her big belly, avoiding eye contact with everyone in the room, and Carmen frowns beside him. “I think maybe he confused the dates or the time or - -”

“Poor thing,” Carmen says, low under her breath to him, and then scoots her ass forwards across the floor towards the other woman. Rio rolls his eyes. Carmen’s always been a bleeding heart. “Is it your first?”

The woman blinks, her blue eyes impossibly wide, and she nods, clearing her throat a little, trying to regain her composure.

“Yours?”

“Third,” Carmen says with a proud grin. “My husband had to work too. He was a rockstar first time round, but he figures we done it before, yeah? I told him that this shit changes, but to be honest, I think he was right. I could teach this thing now.”

The woman laughs softly, and she’s pretty, he thinks, all new mama glow, that fertility goddess shit that Carmen always says, complimenting herself, (and sure, she _does_ looks it too, not that he’d tell her that).

“Look, why don’t you borrow my brother,” Carmen says suddenly, and Rio’s head spins around so quickly it could fall off. “Like I said, I’ve done it all before, and you only really need the men in these classes as props anyway. All the heavy liftings on you.”

The woman blinks over at him, and he can see her blush, but she shrugs, a little awkward, a lot embarrassed, and Carmen’s grinning kindly at her and then smugly at Rio, like she can sense his twenty-one-year-old mortification which she definitely can, but they do it, and he learns her name is Beth, and he learns she smells like lilies and strawberry shortbread when she presses her back into his chest and he spreads his legs around her, and that her skin is smooth as he slides his hands down her arms, and her belly firm when the nurse adjusts his fingers over her baby bump, and his body’s already lean and hard and scarred, and he can’t quite believe, however briefly, touching someone so soft.

 

-

[Original post is here.](https://pynkhues.tumblr.com/post/184285228644/omg-what-do-you-think-it-would-be-like-if-rio-amd)


	21. Beth x Rio - "You'd look so much better on top of it."

Prompt: Beth’s response to Rios you’d look better on top of it

1\. Because she knows it even before he’s said it. Can _feel_ it, the shift in him, the way he tampers the sparks of his anger, guides them into a heady smoulder, his dark eyes on hers, his voice low and thick. “You look good behind that desk.” 

2\. And she knows she does, but she also knows what this is, knows _him_ , at least like this, and so she says _thank you_ and she waits. 

3\. “Hell, you’d look so much better on top of it.” 

4\. And expecting it makes it too easy, makes it too _good_ to stare back at him, unblinking, her back relaxed in her chair, because he can smoulder all he wants, but this is _her_ office, his feet are standing on a floor that belongs to _her_ now, his skinny ass in _her_ chair, and maybe he’ll never be powerless, but he’s talking about bending her over when they both know it’s her hand on his back now, pushing him over that bathroom sink, and she thinks maybe he doesn’t realise just how little she has ever had to lose. 

5\. So he agrees to her terms, but not without a look that settles hot between her legs, and she won’t let herself think about it until afterwards, at home, Dean pressed behind her, grabbing her wrong, _touching_ her wrong, and then she thinks about it again, better, afterwards, alone in bed, her fingers curled inside her, as she thinks about his mouth on her neck, as she thinks about the line the desk would draw across her ass when he pressed her into it, as she thinks about his hands, lifting her, holding her, hard enough to bruise, thinks about taking what she needs from him, and how he already knows how to give it, and hell, she thinks. There’s always next time.

-

[Original post is here.](https://pynkhues.tumblr.com/post/184400259484/head-cannon-beths-response-to-rios-youd-look)


	22. Beth x Rio - Trust

Prompt: all the times Beth doesn’t trust Rio / Rio doesn’t trust Beth, and the one time they trust each other.

1\. She throws her keys at his face, and he tells her to go home, his face drawn, his gaze steady, and Beth asks him about his boy – about his use of _past tense_ , like she’s twenty five years younger and this is freshman English, not her, alone, out the back of a warehouse with their (un)friendly neighbourhood crime lord, and he just - -

He looks at her funny.

2\. So she doesn’t trust him.

Or maybe she does, because he’s gently pulling his gun from her hands, promising her it’ll be alright, his finger soft – too soft – down the side of her face, and she’s tilting her chin up to him, her lips parting, and he’s so close, and maybe she wanted – maybe _this_ – maybe, and just - - just the softness in his face doesn’t even shift when he turns around and shoots.

3\. And then he’s giving her her own gun, like it’s nothing, like she doesn’t see the pearl-finish, like she doesn’t remember. Like no, silly, it’s for the three of you (no, sweetheart, not ever) and he gives it to her and then she gives it back, and he listens when she lies to him, and then probes, amused, and she hates the fact that he is. That he can seemingly pull her off any shelf she finds herself on and toss her open and know exactly what he’s getting, and she steels her body when his hand drags over her spine, as he takes the gun he gave her.

4\. She doesn’t trust him. Not with her life, not with her livelihood, but maybe she trusts him with her body. Trusts him, in that bathroom, to know what to do with it, to touch it right, to _want_ it, to know the ways she wants it, and maybe she’s relieved to find out she’s right, his head pressed into her neck, his hands gripping beneath her thighs, his body somehow fitting against hers, _into_ hers, like they’re a couple of jigsaw pieces, and she hates it, and she loves it, and she thinks this? This is – 

No. 

Don’t think it.

(Just grab him a little harder).

She can’t let herself think it.

5\. Or maybe – okay - - maybe she does trust him with a little more than that, because she feels nothing when he pulls out his gun, when he presses it to her jaw, when he tells her “You ain’t nothin’” because maybe she can’t see through his lies as easy as he can hers, but man, if she isn’t getting there. She slides closer, keeping tabs on his breath, almost seeing his pulse, seeing _him_ , and she means it when she says, “You need me.”

6\. And then Jane’s missing, and Dean says it could’ve been and something short circuits in her, and she’s surging forwards before she can stop herself, her body live wired, hot, and she’s hissing like a cat in his face, her hair on end, “ _Are you suggesting that he took our child?_ ” and she doesn’t hear what he’s saying, but it doesn’t matter, because she’s out of the door and she’s calling him, because she thinks he can - -

No.

Don’t think it.

(Just grab him a little harder).

7\. The dubby is almost too soft in her hands as she pulls it out of the envelope, and it won’t unravel, but maybe something inside her does.

-

[Original post is here.](https://pynkhues.tumblr.com/post/184406522774/headcanon-idea-all-the-times-beth-doesnt-trust)


	23. Seven Minutes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: #28 “You’re being dramatic” / #35 “Have you ever heard of personal space?”

“Ow!”

She yelps as he steps on her foot, only to startle when he spins quickly on the spot, covering her mouth with a big hand and pushing her further back into the closet, forcing her to stumble backwards over shoe boxes and fall with an _oof_ into a pile of gaudy sequined dresses. With his free hand, he taps a finger to his own lips, only just visible in the filtered light of the closet, and Beth rolls her eyes, grabbing at the hand on her mouth to pry his fingers off her.

She’s not even entirely sure what happened. They’d had a planned meeting with a new supplier – someone one of Rio’s boys had connected up with, where, Beth has no idea. She wonders vaguely if there are networking events for criminals. Cocktail mixers or company picnics. Maybe you can select ‘Street Gang’ on the Industry settings of your LinkedIN profile. The thought makes her snort, earning her a glare from Rio and the resetting of his hand against her mouth, the weight of him pushing her further back into the closet as they hear Demon’s voice talking to one of the police officer downstairs.

That had been the thing. The guy had never shown up. Who _had_ was a squad car with two police officers, which wouldn’t have been that big of a deal if Rio wasn’t still out on bail, if he wasn’t holding a duffel bag with a million dollars’ in fake cash, and one of the police officers wasn’t _Stan._

Anyway, here they were, she thinks, something between resigned and hysterical – trapped in the closet of a stranger’s house while Demon tried to grunt his way out of the situation downstairs.

She wriggles a little beneath him, and Rio turns back to look at her, his eyes decidedly unimpressed when she tries to get him to let go of her by licking his hand (he doesn’t so much as twitch – well, he does smirk a little lewdly. Or at least, she thinks he does. It really is hard to see). There’s a sound from downstairs again, like a scrape of a chair leg across a wooden floor, and Rio’s gaze flicks back around to the door, like he could see through it if he wanted to, and the movement is at least enough to make him loosen his hold on Beth’s mouth for her to shove him off her. She stumbles, kicking back against one of the shoeboxes, a naked coathanger stabbing her in the back of the head, and the movement is enough to bump Rio awkwardly, knock him enough off balance that he stumbles into her, so gracelessly she’d be amused if the situation weren’t this awkward.

Because now he’s half on top of her, the half-foot he has on her suddenly way too apparent, and her breath hitches when his hand grips the clothes rail above her head, effectively caging her in.

“Have you ever heard of personal space?” she whisper-hisses up at him, and she can barely see him, but somehow just <i>knows</i> that he’s rolling his eyes at her, his head still tilting back towards the closet door behind him. 

“Ain’t like the place is offerin’ any, ma,” he growls back, his voice low, gravelly and Beth hates that the tone of it drops like a lit match in her belly.

“Just move back a little,” she insists. “I can barely breathe.”

Or at least, she can barely breathe without somehow inhaling _him_ , and god, that’s _not helpful_. She shuffles back, gasps a little when his foot knocks a shoe box, making him stagger into her again, his chest colliding with her face, forcing her to grip his shirt to try and keep her balance.

“Anyone ever tell you you’re real dramatic?” he asks, baring his teeth down at her, and Beth snorts, opening her mouth to tell him all the ways that’s just _completely_ ironic, when a loud bang sounds from downstairs.

Beth jumps, her hands instantly surging up to cling to Rio’s chest, her eyes fluttering wildly, heart beating in her throat but - - but there’s no way that was a gun. The sound too soft, too wooden, and it’s only when she hears the sound of a car driving away that she realises that it was the front door.

She blinks up, looking at her where her fingers are curled in Rio’s shirt, the closeness of him, the warmth, and she wets her lips, unable to help herself, when Rio shifts gently forwards, his knee slipping between her legs.

“Ever heard o’ personal space?” he purrs, voice soft, and Beth glances up at his face, at where she can only just make out the sharpness of his features, his pillowy lower lip jutting out, and god, she hates how much she wants to kiss him, hates how easy it would be, hates that she can already feel herself just starting to teeter up onto her tip toes when the closet door pulls open, flooding the closet with light.

Beth springs back, almost braining herself on the coathanger again, only spared by Rio grabbing a hold of her and tugging her forwards, out of harm’s way, but back into him in the process, making her fall into his chest as he turns them both around to Demon’s knowing look in the entryway of the closet.

“All clear?” Rio asks, voice easy, like they hadn’t just been almost playing seven minutes in heaven before potentially getting arrested. And right, Beth thinks, her face almost _glowing_ with how hot it is. Just - - right.

Demon just makes a noise of affirmation, nodding at Rio and giving Beth an intensely knowing look, before turning on his heel and leaving. Beth and Rio just stand where they are for a minute, and she briefly glances up at him to see him looking down at her with a far too amused look on his face, and Beth glowers up at him, promptly disentangling from him and stumbling into the room. She resists the urge to scrub at her heated cheeks, can feel him leave the closet, step way too close to her to move beyond her, and just - -

Right.


	24. Breaking Eggs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: #1 “How could you do this to me?” / #17 “I don’t need you.”

The problem is, the second she sees the box, it’s impossible for her to _unsee_ it.

“What’s that?” she asks a little breathlessly as Rio makes quick work of undoing the buttons on her blouse, his mouth on her neck as he crowds her back towards the open space in the heart of his loft. When his only reply is to nose the collar of her shirt aside and start to suck a hickey into the spot where her neck meets her shoulder, she keens, her toes curling against the hardwood floors, and tightens her hand on the back of his head only to push him off her.

She’s still catching her breath, her eyes back on that stupid box, when he blinks down at her, visibly confused until his own eyes lower to her open blouse, her chest flushing under the heat of his look. He grins, walking her back until she hits the arm of the couch, reaching to rid her of her shirt the rest of the way, his head dropping to mouth at her breast through her bra.

“ _Rio_ ,” she hisses, shivering before she can help herself – at the cool air now at her bare back, or the warmth of his lips on her skin, she has no idea, doesn’t care, not really, not when his hands are coming down beneath her already bare legs (he’d gotten her jeans off almost the second she’d walked through the door. It was only fair though – she’d somehow gotten both his t-shirt and pants off even quicker), lifting her up onto the arm of the couch. She sucks in a breath, her eyes fluttering shut as he’s pushing her legs apart, kissing his way down her body, and then she’s gasping, clawing at his shoulders as he settles on the floor in front of her, only to open her eyes again and see that _stupid_ _box_.

“Is that a cake mix?” she asks, her breathless words turning into a moan when Rio hums a sound of affirmation into the sensitive skin of her inner thigh.

“Marcus has a thing at school,” he purrs there, his fingers finding the elastic leg of her panties, slipping underneath. “Normally his ma makes somethin’, but she’s outta town.”

He makes slow work of pulling down her panties, inching them off her hips, then slower, too slow, down her thighs, and his breath is hot on her, and Beth can feel herself clench in anticipation of his mouth, and she just - -

“You know they’re terrible, right? They’re full of preservatives and corn syrup. I could - -”

Before she even has the chance to continue, Rio’s hands stop, his chin jutting up. His eyes are still hooded, pupils dilated, but his mouth is set into a long, irritated line.

“No,” he tells her, and Beth blinks down at him, where he’s kneeling on the floor between her legs, and she sits up a little straighter on the arm of the chair, moving to press her legs together, but his hands come up to her knees, holding them apart.

“No what?” she replies, widening her (already wide) eyes, playing dumb as she goes through recipes in her head – carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, apple toffee crunch cake, lemon blueberry layer cake. There’s a Whole Foods barely three blocks away. If they’re quick, she could make it there before close, and get back here, have the whole thing done by a reasonable hour, and - -

She feels her panties drag the rest of the way off her legs, sees them tossed aside as Rio curves his hands back around to the insides of her thighs, sliding up either one. The heat pools low in her again, curling tight between her legs, and she looks at him, and just - - that’s always a mistake, she thinks, especially when he holds his mouth like that.

“Does anyone in his class have any allergies?” she asks a little breathlessly, her hand coming up to curl behind his ear, but Rio clenches his eyes shut briefly in annoyance, shaking his head up at her.

“Nah, we ain’t doin’ that. I don’t need you to do that shit.”

And that’s enough to cool her down (a little, at least). She scoffs, because that is frankly ridiculous.

“You bought _a boxed cake mix_ ,” she says it so incredulously, gesturing wildly back to the kitchen island, that she must seem personally offended and just - - _good_ , she thinks. She is. “I just - - god, Rio, how could you do this to me? It’s like - -”

She waves her arms around, because he _knows_ this about her by now, surely, and it’s like - - She suddenly stiffens, her jaw setting as she squint down at him.

“Like you meant for me to see it.”

A look of surprise briefly crosses his face before he settles for something much more annoyed, his own jaw rocking as he exhales a long, rough breath.

“You think I’d rather be arguin’ with you about a cake you ain’t gonna be makin’, than fuckin’ you,” he says dryly, and Beth frowns down at him, swinging a leg over his head and clambering off the couch. She grabs her panties off the floor, slipping them back on, then his t-shirt, putting that on too, before beelining for the box on the kitchen island. A vanilla sponge, she rolls her eyes, turning the box over to read the ingredients.

Just like she thought.

Corn syrup.

“Well, you do like to insist we both have our own departments,” she replies, her voice low as she moves to turn on the oven to pre-heat. “And god knows yours is nowhere near a kitchen.”

She’s barely put the dial on the right setting before Rio’s turning it off again and plucking the box from her hands, walking it over to the pantry to put it on a shelf she can’t reach.

“You know I wasn’t going to make that one, right?” she says, laughing as she ducks beneath his arm for the pantry. She pulls out the flour, sugar, grins when she finds a tiny, unopened tub of baking powder.

“Elizabeth,” he practically growls behind her, and Beth ignores him, moving to put the items down on the kitchen island. She drops the baking powder and sugar first, and almost before they’ve touched the surface, he’s taking them and putting them on the top shelf of the pantry with the boxed mix. She glares at him, and when his hand reaches for the flour still in her arms, she spins away from him, clutching the packet to her chest.

Rio’s quick though, following her around like he was expecting her to do it, and Beth tries to get away from his grabbing hands, but he won’t let her.

“I ain’t playin’,” he tells her, reaching again for the flour, and Beth stares at him, gobsmacked.

“Neither am I!” she insists, her voice shrill, because she doesn’t bake to _play,_ and certainly not when it’s one of her - - their - - _his_ kids, and he reaches again, this time grabbing the top of the flour packet, and she yanks back at the same time he does and then - -

And then the packet’s exploding between them, erupting in a mushroom cloud of flour, dusting them with white. It’s so sudden Beth gasps, feeling it on her skin, caught in her hair, settling across her cheeks like make-up powder, and she blinks hard, looking up at Rio to see it caught up in his eyelashes, settled like snow on his broad shoulders, a little caught on his lower lip, and Beth just - -

She giggles. Quick as anything, short, sharp, but then louder, harder, as Rio’s look straddles something between fury and still-forming horror at the sudden explosion of _mess_ in his otherwise spotless loft. He sucks in a breath, rubbing at his face, at his shoulders, trying to get it off, and just - - just suddenly he looks so _sweet_ and so _good_ , still half-hard in his underwear, a look on his face that could almost be a pout, and it runs warm through her vein, bursts like the flour box in her belly and just - - god, she’s in trouble, she knows that, but there’ll be time to worry about that later. Right now, Beth drops the newly empty packet to the kitchen island, darting forwards, toes slipping in the flour on the floor, as she surges up to kiss him.

“It’s your fault,” she says into his mouth, feeling his hands come down to the hem of her (well, _his_ ) t-shirt, yanking it off her.

“Nuh,” he replies, but he’s still twitchy at the mess, his thumb brushing a line through the flour dusting her cheekbone, and she thinks maybe they’ll just have to agree to disagree on that one. 

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to drop a prompt on tumblr at pynkhues <3


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